He turned over the volume half thinking, half brooding.

‘I will look again,’ he thought, ’at the verses which that day my father gave me to read.  Truly I did not well understand them.’

Once more he read the poem through.  It closed with these lines: 

So far this Light the Raies extends, As that no place It comprehends.  So deepe this Sound, that though it speake, It cannot by a Sence so weake Be entertain’d.  A Redolent Grace The Aire blowes not from place to place.  A pleasant Taste, of that delight It doth confound all appetite.  A strict Embrace, not felt, yet leaves That vertue, where it takes it cleaves.  This Light, this Sound, this Savouring Grace, This Tastefull Sweet, this Strict Embrace, No Place containes, no Eye can see, My God is; and there’s none but Hee.

‘I have gained something,’ he cried aloud.  ’I understand it now—­at least I think I do.  What if, in fighting for the truth as men say, the doors of a man’s own heart should at length fly open for her entrance!  What if the understanding of that which is uttered concerning her, be a sign that she herself draweth nigh!  Then I will go on.—­And that I may go on, I must recover my mare.’

Honestly, however, he could not quite justify the scheme.  All the efforts of his imagination, as he rode home, to bring his judgment to the same side with itself, had failed, and he had been driven to confess the project a foolhardy one.  But, on the other hand, had he not had a leading thitherward?  Whence else the sudden conviction that Scudamore had taken her, and the burning desire to seek her in Raglan stables?  And had he not heard mighty arguments from the lips of the most favoured preachers in the army for an unquestioning compliance with leadings?  Nay, had he not had more than a leading?  Was it not a sign to encourage him, even a pledge of happy result, that, within an hour of it, and in consequence of his first step in partial compliance with it, he had come upon the only creature capable of conducting him into the robber’s hold?  And had he not at the same time learned the Raglan password?—­He would go.

He rose, and descending the little creaking stair of black oak that led from his room to the next storey, sought his father’s study, where he wrote a letter informing him of his intended attempt, and the means to its accomplishment that had been already vouchsafed him.  The rest of his time, after eating his dinner, he spent in making overshoes for his mare out of an old buff jerkin.  As soon as the twilight began to fall, he set out on foot for the witch’s cottage.

When he arrived, he found her expecting him, but prepared with no hearty welcome.

’I had liefer by much thee had not come so pat upon thy promise, master Heywood.  Then I might have looked to move thee from thy purpose, for truly I like it not.  But thou will never bring an old woman into trouble, master Richard?’